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Astronomers have discovered the second most distant quasar ever found, using the international Gemini Observatory and Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO), Programs of NSF’s NOIRLab. It is also the first quasar to receive an indigenous Hawaiian name, Pōniuāʻena. The quasar contains a monster black hole, twice the mass of the black hole in the only other quasar found at the same epoch, challenging the current theories of supermassive black hole formation and growth in the early Universe....

Venus Express has spied a surprisingly cold region high in the planet’s atmosphere that may be frigid enough for carbon dioxide to freeze out as ice or snow. The planet Venus is well known for its thick, carbon dioxide atmosphere and oven-hot surface, and as a result, is often portrayed as Earth’s inhospitable evil twin. But in a new analysis based on five years of observations using ESA’s Venus Express, scientists have uncovered a very chilly layer at temperatures of around –175ºC in the atmosphere 125 km above the planet’s surface....

International team detected radio bubbles with South Africa’s MeerKAT telescope. A gigantic, balloon-like structure has been hiding in plain sight, right in the center of our own galaxy. An international team of astronomers, including Northwestern’s Farhad Yusef-Zadeh, discovered the structure, which is one of the largest ever observed in the Milky Way’s center. The newly spotted pair of radio-emitting bubbles reach hundreds of light-years tall, dwarfing all other structures in the central region of the galaxy....

An object near the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy has drawn the interest of scientists because it has evolved dramatically in a relatively short time.A new study by scientists from UCLA and the Keck Observatory suggests that the object, called X7, could be a cloud of dust and gas that was created when two stars collided.The researchers believe it will eventually be drawn toward the black hole and will disintegrate....

Raphidocystis contractilis is a type of eukaryote in the Heliozoa group, found in fresh, brackish, and sea water. These organisms are known as “solar worms” due to their radiating finger-like arms, or axopodia, which give them a sun-like appearance. The axopodia of R. contractilis are made of alpha-beta tubulin heterodimers, which form microtubules. Despite its ability to quickly retract its arms in response to stimuli, the mechanism behind this rapid arm shortening is a mystery....

Astrobiologists supported in part by the NASA Astrobiology Program are applying their diverse skillset to the development of treatments for patients infected by COVID-19. The effort centers around the work of Professor Rachel Martin at the University of California at Irvine (UC Irvine). Martin is a principal investigator (PI) with the Exobiology program and her research focuses on predicting the properties of proteases found in extremophilic microorganisms on Earth. In particular, her team studies protease in microbes from very cold environments....

The missions — Juno and InSight — have each increased our understanding of our solar system, as well as spurred new sets of diverse questions. An independent review panel, comprised of experts with backgrounds in science, operations, and mission management, found the Juno and InSight missions have “produced exceptional science,” and recommended NASA continue both missions. The Juno spacecraft and its mission team have made discoveries about Jupiter’s interior structure, magnetic field, and magnetosphere, and have found its atmospheric dynamics to be far more complex than scientists previously thought....

This image was acquired near midnight local time. Based on parameters including the azimuth of the Sun and its elevation above the horizon, as well as the length of the shadows, it is estimated that the iceberg rises about 49 meters (161 feet) above the water line. That would put the total thickness of the berg—above and below the water surface—at about 315 meters (1,033 feet).

The joint Anomaly Response Team has been studying the array using an engineering model. Initial tests indicate that the lanyard that pulls out the solar array may not have completed the process successfully; however, it is still uncertain what caused this condition. The team is conducting more tests to determine if this is indeed the case, and what the root cause might be. An attempt to characterize the array deployment by attempting to move it would occur no earlier than November 16....

NASA is remembering Millie Hughes-Fulford, the first woman to fly as a NASA payload specialist, who died Thursday. Hughes-Fulford was selected as a payload specialist in January 1983 and flew in June 1991 aboard the space shuttle Columbia on the STS-40 Spacelab Life Sciences (SLS 1) mission, the first mission dedicated to biomedical studies. The mission flew more than 3.2 million miles, completing 146 orbits around Earth, and its crew completed more than 18 experiments during a nine-day period, bringing back more medical data than any previous NASA mission....

Stretching over 100,000 light-years across, the galaxy dubbed Hoag’s Object is slightly larger than our own home galaxy, the Milky Way. The blue ring is dominated by clusters of young, massive stars, while the yellow nucleus consists of mostly older stars. In this sonification, a clockwise radar scan transforms data in the image into sound. Bright light is represented with louder volume, and light farther from the center is higher-pitched....

Although plants don’t sleep in the same way humans do, they have circadian rhythms – internal clocks that, like our own internal clocks, tell them when it’s night and when it’s day. And like many people, plants are less active at night. When the Sun comes up, they kick into gear, absorbing sunlight to convert carbon dioxide they draw from the air and water they draw from the soil into food, a process called photosynthesis....

The spacecraft made its closest approach to Titan today at 12:04 p.m. PDT (3:04 p.m. EDT), at an altitude of 73,974 miles (119,049 kilometers) above the moon’s surface. The spacecraft is scheduled to make contact with Earth on September 12 at about 6:19 p.m. PDT (9:19 p.m. EDT). Images and other science data taken during the encounter are expected to begin streaming to Earth soon after. Navigators will analyze the spacecraft’s trajectory following this downlink to confirm that Cassini is precisely on course to dive into Saturn at the planned time, location and altitude....

NASA’s Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation (EMIT) mission aboard the International Space Station (ISS) has produced its first mineral maps, providing detailed images that show the composition of the surface in regions of northwest Nevada and Libya in the Sahara Desert. EMIT was launched to the ISS aboard a SpaceX Dragon Spacecraft on July 14, 2022. Windy desert areas such as these are the sources of fine dust particles that, when lifted by wind into the atmosphere, can heat or cool the surrounding air....

In this new image, the hazy light blue halo corresponds to the first-ever X-ray polarization data for Vela, which comes from NASA’s Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer, or IXPE. A faint blue fuzzy line pointing to the upper right-hand corner corresponds to a jet of high-energy particles shooting out from the pulsar at about half the speed of light. The pink X-ray “arcs” are thought to mark the edges of donut-shaped regions where the pulsar wind shocks and accelerates high-energy particles....

So marks the beginning of SDO’s eclipse season — as well as the mission’s eighth launch anniversary. SDO’s eclipse season is a three-week period that comes twice a year near the equinoxes during which Earth blocks SDO’s view of the Sun for a short while each day. The eclipses are fairly short near the beginning and end of the season but ramp up to 72 minutes in the middle. Most spacecraft observing the Sun from an orbit around Earth have to contend with such eclipses....

The crew members assigned to NASA’s SpaceX Crew-5 mission are in orbit following their launch at noon EDT on Wednesday to the International Space Station (ISS) from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The international crew will serve as NASA’s fifth commercial crew rotation mission with SpaceX aboard the orbital laboratory. A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket blasted the Dragon Endurance spacecraft into orbit. It was carrying two NASA astronauts: Nicole Mann, mission commander, and Josh Cassada, pilot....

NASA will provide coverage of the upcoming prelaunch and launch activities for the agency’s SpaceX Crew-2 mission with astronauts to the International Space Station. This is the second crew rotation flight of the SpaceX Crew Dragon and the first with two international partners. The flight follows certification by NASA for regular flights to the space station as part of the agency’s Commercial Crew Program. The launch, on a Falcon 9 rocket, is targeted for 6:11 a....

The S-MODE team hopes to learn more about small-scale movements of ocean water such as eddies. These whirlpools span about 6.2 miles or ten kilometers, slowly moving ocean water in a swirling pattern. Scientists think that these eddies play an important role in moving heat from the surface to the ocean layers below, and vice versa. In addition, the eddies may play a role in the exchange of heat, gases, and nutrients between the ocean and Earth’s atmosphere....

The giant black hole at the center of the Milky Way may be producing mysterious particles called neutrinos. If confirmed, this would be the first time that scientists have traced neutrinos back to a black hole. The evidence for this came from three NASA satellites that observe in X-ray light: the Chandra X-ray Observatory, the Swift gamma-ray mission, and the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR). Neutrinos are tiny particles that carry no charge and interact very weakly with electrons and protons....